Living with an apostrophe can be tricky…

A New Dream for the New Year…Kind of.

It’s January 10th and I’ve been struggling with how to process this new year. In so many ways I am eager, excited, encouraged and energized for the coming year. I sense God’s leading in ways I have never before. I see his steps for me more clearly than I have known before.

But it’s not just the kids. When we first moved to Conway I wrote about how I was trying to learn to live fully and completely here. Brandon and I felt convicted to stop making plans of what our future could hold and start living fully and completely in the now that God has given us.

And we have begun to see God’s hand in amazing ways.

But, while God called us to live fully and completely here. He hasn’t let us settle. He keeps directing our attention to something else. Something beyond our imagination, something we can’t even see yet. I believe God has given us a godly restlessness. A restlessness which allows us to both live fully here and ready for what’s next. A restlessness that, if we’re paying attention, points us toward the Giver of all good things.

But, a restlessness, that’s kind of exhausting.

Brandon and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on December 31. For maybe only the second time in our marriage, it was just the two of us. It seemed appropriate for us to dream about what our lives would look like 10 years from now.

And, honestly, neither of us had much of anything to say.

And, that sounds terribly unromantic and depressing. But, I’m not saying we are unhappy. Or that we don’t have ambitions and dreams.

No, Brandon and I are wonderfully content and happy with each other.

And we have more plans for our future than most people, I think. (Planning the future is my love language. )

But, here’s the thing…

We could never have dreamed what we are doing now. We could never have written how our family would come together. We couldn’t have planned the course the last 10 years would take.

No list could have gotten us here. No strategic plan could have articulated the reality that we live in.

In fact, as we looked back over the past 10 years we laughed that almost every single one of our plans didn’t work out the way we planned it.

So, moving into this new year. Moving into our next decade together. We’re not making many plans.

Now, we’re continuing to study. We’re continuing to minister. We’re continuing to enrich. To professionally develop. To be mentored and to mentor others. We’re working to grow in our faith, to make plans for our children. We’re continuing to budget, to schedule, to discern, to parent… We’re going to Europe in June…

But, we have no idea where the next year, 5 years or 10 years will lead. We just don’t know. And, we’re learning to be okay with that.

We’re learning to move forward with our hands open. We’re learning to trust when things don’t look how we wanted. We’re learning to plan expectantly for the unexpected. To dream for that which we could never imagine.

And, we’re still learning how that works. But, each and every year, we are loving it more and more.